Gardai inquiries were upgraded yesterday after 32-year-old Declan Smith died at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.

He was shot in the head minutes after leaving his child to a creche on the northside of the capital yesterday week.

Parents watched in horror as Smith, who was known as 'Fat Deccy', fell to the ground in a pool of blood after he had taken his child into the Little Rainbows creche at Holywell Avenue in Donaghmede at around 9am.

As he walked away from the creche, a lone gunman ran up and shot him at close range.

Officers said Smith had built up a list of enemies and had been warned by detectives that his life was in danger.

One of the theories examined by investigating officers was a possible connection between the shooting and the knee-capping of a builder in Finglas earlier this month.

In that incident, Nicholas Duffy was shot in both knees and both ankles after being abducted near the Church of the Annunciation at Cardiffsbridge Road, bundled into a car, tied up and interrogated in a house for more than an hour before being dumped on a green area near Kilshane Road.

Gardai suspect that the gunmen involved in that incident were part of the gang that included Smith's gunman.